this is the only sort of ending for these two
by kimanioverthinks
Summary: And maybe it isn't happy, but it is an ending. He marries the girl with the tangle of red hair and she finds peace. TeddyVictoire.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

When she lies on her back in the sand outside Shell Cottage, her blonde hair tangled around her slim shoulders and his body curved protectively beside hers, the stars grin down at her and the waves rush to meet her bare feet with their unpainted toenails.

She's a girl who likes coffee, crossword puzzles in French and boys with eyes that change colours. And he's a drowning man, in love with a girl eleven years too young.

Lily goes to back to school in the morning and he'll see her off at the station, while she waits in her parents' kitchen drinking coffee as black as his hair when he Apparates back, well after midday and stinking of Muggle alcohol.

She used to drink coffee with cream, the pale swirls would dull the harshness of the rich coffee. But now she's broken; she makes love to him at two am and he calls her 'Lily' and she cries herself to sleep, his arm thrown across her stomach, his face pressed between her shoulder and her neck.

She sometimes has moments where she'd like to pack her belongings into a rucksack and take the train to the countryside. She'd marry a gentleman and have a little girl she'd name Caitlynn Rose. She dreams of a boy with blonde hair and sea-green eyes and a smile to melt chocolate. And then she arches her body against him and closes her eyes and drifts away.

He wakes up alone, every morning, stumbles into the tiny kitchen of his East London apartment and makes eggs and toast. He sits by his window and counts all the girls with red hair and imagines Lily's one of them, but she never is.

He remembers the father that died fighting for him and the mother that has his eyes. He traces his fingers across the letter she wrote him. ("_My baby, my Teddy, mommy'll be home soon. I just have to take care of something first_.")

Her mug shatters against the floor and hot coffee splashes everywhere; burns her bare thighs, stains his one foot of white sock, seeps into the cracks between the faded tiles. He yells. She yells back.

"Listen to me, Teddy Lupin, my name is Victoire. Not _Lily Luna_."

"I know." His voice is loud and angry but his face is calm, not a shadow of a snarl or a ghost of a sneer.

And she shuts up, because maybe she hoped he hadn't remembered, hadn't noticed. She takes the kisses he'd pressed to her forehead before the Sun comes up, before he crawls out the window and into the still-dark morning because they don't bruise like his touches, his marring to her skin.

For a split second, her world stops spinning and she runs.

She runs along the beach until she realizes she can't run anymore and then she disapparates.

The French countryside, tall grasses brush against her bare thighs and bile rises in her throat. She vomits into a bush, and slumps to the ground. She's more than tired, more than exhausted.

She's broken and she feels like she's alone.

When he comes to find her, his hair is the colour of Caribbean sand and his eyes are the pale green—not Potter eyes, never Potter eyes—and he scoops her against his bare chest and whispers sweet nothings into her ear and against her hair. He takes her home, and wraps her in one of his shirts and puts her in bed. She falls asleep to the smell of Shell Cottage, the sounds of her mother bustling around in her mental instability. Fleur is mad; stark, raving mad. She knows not her daughter's name.

When she wakes up there's a cup of coffee, cream and sugar, waiting.

She swallows a big gulp and then pours the rest down the skin and drinks a cup of hothothot water. It burns her tongue and hurts her throat but she feels better.

She packs slowly while she waits for him to come back.

He doesn't.

She packs even slower.

Finally, there's nothing left to pack and she curls up beside the one suitcase with clothes neatly folded inside and cries.

Three a.m., four a.m., five a.m.; no Teddy.

Her cheeks burn and her hair is tangled. She scrubs her face and combs her hair.

She puts on her best dress and she leaves.

She takes the first train out and she never comes back.

He marries the girl with the red hair and the green eyes and the stars on her cheeks. And she finds peace.

And maybe that's the closest either of them will get to happy, but it's definitely an ending.

**I wish I knew why I wrote this. I didn't even re-read it, or check for errors and I want a cup of coffee but I can't.**


End file.
